Thank you kindly for the opportunity to speak to 3DAgain. It's a pleasure. My passion was born many years ago. Around the middle of the eighties. When the first personal computers started entering into the Italian's households. My brother was very passionate of new technologies. One late, Christmas night I find myself awoken by the music of the movie Ghostbusters, coming out of a Commodore c64 that he bought for me, which was playing the related movie's game. That was the first of many nights in front of a monitor. From games to computer graphic, the path was not too far apart. I put all my savings into an Amiga computer and started to play with as many pieces of software I could generate graphic with.

Classical studies. Then a couple of years studying Biology. By that time I was already more at ease with Deluxe Paint than with chemistry. The transition into professional computer graphic became more natural. And, luckily, more remunerative on the long run.

I believe the biggest jump in my current field of work is likely coming from Paul Debevec's studies on HDRI and related research. Truth is, in general I feel technology in this business has always been at par level, if not driven by the enthusiasm, energy and artistic talent that computer artists always carry with them. Once you feel the excitement of creating something new, either as a digital painting or rendering, that emotion will become the reason and motivation behind looking into new ventures and pushing the technological horizon itself. From that point of view, I believe we have just begun to see what we can do.

Every production had a different flavor. I think that maybe... you wont forget the first movie you worked on. The first time you see your name on the big screen gives you a unique feeling. In my case, more than of pride, a feeling of accomplishment for all the long hours and challenges you had to overcome to get there. Having said that, it will be difficult to forget of having worked on James Cameron's Avatar. Having being part of the biggest movie of recent history puts a lot of things in perspective.

Unfortunately I cannot cover details for legal reasons. But, I can mention that it was a unique trip. Since the very beginning of production, I found myself in the unique position of starting, following and implementing a few of the technological innovations that we needed in our department to deliver the project. Often on my own. It was fantastic to see how so many talented people's joined effort since day one translated into the final product. Almost like a caterpillar becomes a beautiful butterfly. Seemingly it feels like a miracle, but intimately is a very complex and difficulttransformation.

It's a great place. After having lived and worked in Canada, California, England and Italy, I think New Zealand is a country which offers quite a unique life style opportunity. Costs are those of a island in the middle of the Pacific, but people are fantastic. Very passionate and at the same time incredibly amicable. Same as the nature and the ocean around you, they quickly become an intimate part of your daily life. From an economic point of view, in this career you have to pay attention to the flow of production and money around the world. If Italy had to offer competitive salaries and incentives, I think anyone would love to work there. At the moment it looks like we are reaching a new cycle of flows and other countries seem to be ahead for offering higher CG production standards.

During my career I had the fortune of covering various production roles around the world and working with many incredible talents. I contributed to work for some of the most known production houses and studios, between which: Walt Disney Pictures, Sony Pictures Imageworks, Universal Pictures, Weta Digital, C.O.R.E Feature Animation, Framestore CFC, Moving Picture Company, UPN, Atari, Seneca Colleges, Hasbro, DKP Studios, Artech Studios, Marvel e FOX. This experience has allowed me to have a fairly deep understanding of general production topics which in exchange helped me solve challenging situations, either for technical, artistic or personnel matters. I often realized that some of these challenges are not directly related to technical matters themsleves. While they are often easy to solve if recognized and dealt with at the right production moment. Across the year I have kept taking note of these events and I dedicated myself to improve related work cycles around me. Nowadays I also offer this knowledge to those individual or companies which are willing to invest in this business or improve their cycles. I have had the fortune to offer these seminars since 2005, in various contries and to hundreds of people. And at this very moment I am planning to bring this experience to Italy as well through ReelMatters.com, for the very first time!! I will extend aninvite to all Your readers and ask them to meet me in Milan on the 20th of May. Or in Rome, with a date to fix around the end of May. Write to me at Info@ReelMatters.com and reserve your very own seat!

Well. Here's an example of my attachment to this business. One night I find myself driving home very late at night. Or early morning I should say. Maybe 3 or 4am. After a very long day at work. I reach a red light going down a very steep city street and I stop the car. And. All I remember is being woken up by the cars' horns behind me, with my foot still solid on the brake, after the light had become green for maybe a minute. If you can survive that, you can likely survive production cycles.

From a career point of view, as what is happening right now in the USA teaches, the biggest challenge nowadays is that the very majority of the computer graphic's work force has little to no business knowledge nor understanding of work ethics. And we are all paying the price for that. From a technical point of view, instead, we are the beginning of an incredible revolution in the computer graphic! But! You will have to join me at the ReelMatters.com seminar to know more!!

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